Democracy 3

The game is an interesting balancing act that requires thoughtful application of changes. The cause and effect network makes sorting out longer term goals quite fun. The game was surprisingly easy to pick up. I lost my first game hopelessly but got the hang of it second time around. I didn't read the manual and found that the tutorial was enough to get a grip. I also liked that the tutorial didn't labour on and on, but just pointed out the key stuff and then handed control back.

I've played this game for a couple days and I can proudly say: I am the first prime minister of Canada to be assassinated. Those liberal. They really hated my guts. I enjoyed the gameplay and the difficulty. I even pulled off the Utopia Achievement... before my untimely death. Super fun. I hope they make a Democracy 4.

There are a few things I'd like to mention. First and primary thing is the Assassinations. Seriously, I think that that should be removed from the game entirely, or at the very least nerfed. Second, there are going to be a bit of political bias's, because everyone in the world has different views of what works. I'm sure there are mods to out there to meet everyone's political views. The game itself is quite entertaining. When you first get into the game it's a bit difficult to figure out how things work, and how to manipulate policies to please people, and eventually get elected again. The DLC for the game is a bit overpriced for what you get from them, but if you get them on sale then its worth it.

The gameplay itself is a very good concept and one which I have a very strong interest in. I'm sure that, if I actually had the chance to play any more than three turns before the game packs up, I'd actually enjoy it a great deal. However, there are too many reliability problems with this game. When trying to save a game, when trying to load a game, when trying to cancel a policy decision, when the game has to get off its backside and actually do something - it has crashed on all of these occasions. This, to me, is very sad and it needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency. People should not pay £16.99 for a game that doesn't work for more than a few seconds. There is nothing wrong with my hardware either and I'm aware that many users have faced similar reliability issues. GOG, Please get this fixed as soon as possible and please review games for any problems more thoroughly before releasing them - perhaps a QA department would work wonders...

I'd give it 3.5 if you could give half stars. I love the idea of this game but its just far too easy. I've played all three democracy games and this one just seems like a nice reskin with a few extra policies. I'd hope the devs will introduce more randomness to the games mechanics in later patches but I wont hold my breath. I played the UK for 2 hours, after those two hours I had resolved all but one national issue, wiped out national debt (and had £1tn surplus), had wiped out religion and maximised funding on a space programme and was winning elections by an 80% turnout. This was at difficulty sliders set to 115%. My first game. Make it harder devs.